StormWatch: Team Achilles (StormWatch: Team Achilles #4)

"Back Doors"

It's a new day for Team Achilles and new things are happening. A young man by the name of Avi Barak walks into Team Achilles headquarters and is greeted by field team leader Blake Coleman. The man is a Stormwatch reservist codenamed "Seeker". He gets a cold welcome from Coleman and then starts to be led down to Santini. Getting tired of Coleman's attitude he asks him what really went down the previous day. When Coleman says it's classified Barak somehow knows the truth. Coleman threatens to kill him if he does it again and Barak says he only did it to break up the "F you, new guy" vibe Blake was giving off. He's told not to do it again but he keeps asking questions and coming up with the real answers the whole way to Santini's office. To teach him a lesson Blake cuts off a piece of his ear before sending him in to see Santini.

While Avi is screaming about his ear Santini tells him that that isn't how he should report for duty. He also says that, knowing what Barak can do (he's an inductive telepath, if he asks a question he automatically gets the answer from the person's mind), and who it was that cut his ear off, it was probably his own fault that he got cut. He orders Avi not to ask anymore questions. Coleman takes him down to Doctor Grunier to get him fixed up but she tells him to wait twenty minutes. He barges in anyway and sees her treating Jukko. Seeing the disfigured man in front of him he asks him what happened. Jukko says he cut himself shaving but the real answer slams into Barak's mind and knocks him out. Grunier wants to know why she wasn't told a telepath is on the team and Santini tells her it's because Avi Barak is not part of the field team. Grunier thinks that everyone should have been briefed and Santini says he'll do that later. He dismisses everyone from his office except for Barak.

Santini and Barak talk (without Avi asking questions) about the situation with Jukko and why Barak isn't dead. Santini reveals that Barak is actually a better telepath than he knows but he's only partially activated. Santini needs Barak to find the SPB that activated the terrorists that attacked earlier but to do that Barak himself needs to be activated. It's a process that could kill him, but Barak is willing to do it. He tells Santini about an incident in his past where he just wasn't good enough to stop the bad guy and countless children died as a result. He says that if activating him gives him a chance to stop that from ever happening again and better yet, to stop Dhul Fiqar (the terrorist SPB), then he wants to do it. Santini explains to Barak that he normally doesn't like SPBs and hates them on his teams because of the super human alpha male problem and them banding together and defending their own and how both of those create loyalty problems. He says that's not going to happen with their team and he decides to activate Avi. He gives the telepath a sheet of paper and tells him to read it in front of a mirror and answer the questions written on it. First there are normal questions like what his name is, things that he can answer. It moves on to questions he doesn't think he knows the answer to but his powers kick in and force him to remember and answer correctly. The questions go on even further and Avi explodes with energy. After activation, Santini and Coleman take him to interrogate one of the surviving terrorists. Ben and Blake go play some cards and Avi comes back in a short time with the location of the other terrorists. He tells them the terrorists are in Chechnya and they tell him that Chechnya is protected... by the Authority.

Santini arranges a sit-down between him, Jack Hawksmoor and Midnighter to discuss the possibility of Team Achilles getting into Chechnya. The Authority basically shut him down and tells him to stay out of Chechnya. Santini says they're not doing their job and so his team is going to do it for them. Jukko adds to the problem by threatening Midnighter but Hawksmoor ends it and he and Midnighter leave. When they're gone Santini reveals that he had no intention of working things out with them and the meeting was just a way for Tefibi to get into their computer systems through their radio-telepathy. Team Achilles is going to Chechnya.